Harry Potter and the Path of Knowledge
by Slytherin Dragon
Summary: Sequel to "Harry Potter and the Tomb of Days". After being blocked forever on this thing, I figured everything out. Now it scares me. Once again, the unstoppable duo of Potter and Malfoy team up to explore the unknown. And I didn't even have to drop t
1. Entrance

Harry Potter and the Path of Knowledge  
  
Part 1: Exposition  
  
  
"He just collapsed!" Hermione wailed. "We were watching you play, Harry, and   
you caught the Snitch, and then he just... he... just...." She buried her   
head in her hands and began to sob.  
  
Harry laid an awkward hand on her shoulder and stared at Ron, lying still and   
quiet in the bed, barely even breathing. There were no hex marks, Madam   
Pomfrey had checked for poison, there was no reason Ron should have been   
lying there like that. But he was. And he wasn't getting any better.  
  
In fact, Ron Weasley was getting worse. He was dying. Madam Pomfrey had   
left to try and find the twins and Ginny, Professor Dumbledore had left to   
send an owl to Ron's parents. "There's nothing we can do but be there in   
case he wakes up," he'd said kindly to both Harry and Hermione.  
  
Hermione hadn't stopped crying. Harry wanted to scream. "There's got to be   
a way," he said suddenly. "It wasn't Avada Kedav... the death charm, else   
he'd be dead already, right? So there's a chance."  
  
"You heard Professor Dumbledore," Hermione snuffled miserably. "He doesn't   
even know what's wrong with Ron. He can't even do anything, and Madame   
Pomfrey can't do anything, what makes you think you can?"  
  
"Ron's my friend," Harry said stubbornly. "I have to at least try. He'd try   
to save me."  
  
Hermione gave no sign that she'd heard anything he said and started crying   
again. She and Ron hadn't been going out as long as all that, but she had completely disintegrated.  
  
Harry sighed and left the room. Hermione wasn't being much of a help; it was obvious she wasn't going to pull herself out of her shocky grief-response in time to be any help. She   
usually dashed straight off to the library when something went wrong...   
"But," he said to a nearby portrait of an elderly wizard, who nearly dropped   
his tea in surprise at being addressed, "since no one knows what's wrong, the   
library won't be any help. I can't read the entire library in time."  
  
"Shouldn't think so," the portrait agreed, a bit bewildered but willing to   
play along.  
  
Harry paced back and forth, then snapped his head around to stare at the   
portrait. "That's it! Thanks!"  
  
He dashed off, leaving a confused portrait to search through its memory for   
precisely what it had said that was so brilliant.  
  
*****  
  
About ten minutes later, Harry was wandering around in the dusty northern   
corridor. It was a beautiful plan. Find the Tomb of Days again and try to   
get it to let him see the near past instead of the history of the founding of   
Hogwarts. Then he could see what happened to Ron, and *then* he could go to   
the library and-  
  
"What are you looking for?" asked a female voice from off to his left.   
  
Harry glanced up to see the silvery form of a ghost girl. "You're the...   
Grey Lady, aren't you?"  
  
"Yes. What are you looking for?" She looked around. "There's a nice   
portrait here, but I don't see anything else... shouldn't you be with your   
friend?"  
  
"That's why I'm here." Harry explained his plan to the ghost, including the   
story of how he'd found the Tomb of Days in the first place. Leaving out the   
parts where he hadn't had a clue what was going on, of course.  
  
She frowned. "That won't work... it sounds like the Tomb is bound into just   
that one story to me." She shifted so she was sitting, crosslegged and upside-down, in midair. Also, you can't get down there anymore. I doubt Helga Hufflepuff wants anyone messing with time now that she's got it how she wants it."  
  
"So what do I do then?"  
  
"Stop pouting, for one. You'll ruin your looks. Go to the library, for   
another." The Grey Lady vanished. "We'll talk more when you get there! I have to go get someone!"  
  
"Why do I get the feeling I'm being led around by the nose?" Harry asked no   
one in particular as he left in the direction of the library.  
  
From the immense portrait of the Hogwarts founders, Salazar Slytherin fixed   
one of his fellow founders with a glare. "What are you up to, Rowena?"  
  
*****  
  
The library was quiet, as always. Quiet, filled with books, and mostly   
solitary. Madam Pince, the vulture-like librarian, was ensconced at her   
desk, busy enough that she barely looked up long enough to fix Harry with a   
warning glare.  
  
So I'm here at the library, he thought. On orders from a ghost. But if the   
ghost could help him save Ron....  
  
It was ridiculous, but he walked around anyway, looking over all the titles   
embossed in gold and silver on the spines of the books, hoping to see   
something useful. Which was why he wasn't expecting to see Draco Malfoy   
sitting at a table, alone, reading a book. He couldn't resist. "Studying,   
Malfoy?" he asked as nastily as he could. "Where's your brute squad?"  
  
The reaction was absolutely priceless. Malfoy froze, dropped the book on the   
heavy oak table (earning himself a sharp "Hush!" from the direction of Madam   
Pince) and jerked around to face Harry, pale features flushed most   
satisfactorily.  
  
Once he'd gotten over his shock, he sneered. "What do you care, Potter? I'm   
surprised you're not mooning over the Weasel's hospital bed like that Granger   
creature."  
  
Harry tensed. "If you don't want a black eye to go with your robes, you'll   
leave off that subject," he said, forcing himself not to yell.  
  
Malfoy sniffed and picked up his book again. "Touchy, aren't we?" he asked,   
studiously avoiding Harry's resulting glare.  
  
On its own, Harry's hand curled into a fist. "Wouldn't you be?" he demanded   
roughly. "If it was your-"  
  
"Ah, both of you. Wonderful." The Grey Lady appeared, sitting demurely on a   
nearby table. She seemed like quite a young woman, and pretty even as a   
ghost. "Follow me, you two, this way!"  
  
Malfoy looked over the top of his book. "A date with a ghost, Potter... you   
*must* be desperate."  
  
"She was talking to both of us," Harry said, almost to himself. She went off to get *Malfoy* before meeting him in the library?  
  
"I am conveniently ignoring that part. Run along, Potter."  
  
Harry frowned. The Grey Lady had told him to come to the library, then she'd   
shown up, seemed pleased to see both of them there, and flitted off again.   
"I'm not taking any chances," he announced, forcing out the words. Remember   
Ron, it was for Ron.... "You're coming too, Malfoy."  
  
"I am not. I happen to be studying."  
  
"She's going to tell me how to save Ron's life. I think. And she told us   
both to follow her."  
  
"How nice." Malfoy shut the book and replaced it on the shelf, then smiled   
coldly. "And what, precisely, makes you think I care whether Weasley lives   
or dies?"  
  
Harry scowled. He wasn't about to let Malfoy off the hook. "You may not. I   
think you do, but I'm not going to argue with you about it. You're going to   
come with me because if you don't...."  
  
Malfoy snickered. "If I don't...?"  
  
"I'll tell Dumbledore you killed Ron."  
  
Malfoy blinked a few times. "Even though I didn't?" he asked slowly.  
  
"If I say you did..." Harry said slowly, "people will believe me over you if I say grass is   
purple. And it's not like you and Ron were... *are* friends or anything." Harry   
crossed his arms, praying that Malfoy wouldn't see through his bluff.  
  
Icy silver-grey eyes regarded him silently for a moment, then the other boy   
lowered his gaze and shrugged. Was he hiding a *smile*? "Well, when you put it *that* way," he   
murmured. "Lead on."  
  
Harry nodded once, sharply, praying that the sudden relief wasn't showing on   
his face. He started moving, following the path the Grey Lady had taken   
among the stacks, confident that the Slytherin boy was following him.  
  
They came to a tiny alcove, where the ghost hovered, tapping her foot on the ceiling. "Well, *finally*," she said. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming." She lifted a nearly-transparent hand to point at a door in the corner. "In there."  
  
"After you," Malfoy said, waving at the door. "If there's a trap... and you   
die... I'll be able to go back to studying."  
  
"Coward," Harry accused, opening the door. Even though he was still fairly   
small for his age (though thanks to a growth spurt he was at least a little   
bigger than Malfoy), he had to duck to enter.   
  
It was a small, bare room lit only by candles. A mirror stood against the   
far wall as the only decoration. The Grey Lady glided in, just before Malfoy   
walked in. "Charming," he remarked. "I'm sure *this* will really help you   
in your little quest, Potter. You can decorate Weasley's bedside."  
  
The Grey Lady hovered next to the mirror. "Well. Welcome, both of you, to the Path of Knowledge. The start of it, anyway."  
  
"The what?" Harry asked.  
  
"The Path of Knowledge. Kindly don't interrupt, please. You fulfill all the requirements for admittance to the Path. You have the power, and you've been inducted into the secrets of another founder. On behalf of Lady Rowena Ravenclaw, welcome." She folded her hands in front of her and bowed oddly formally. Straighening, she gave the two boys a clear, serious gaze; for the first time Harry could really believe that the fluttery ghost was Raveclaw's spectral representative. "Here are the rules. You get to walk the Path once. That's all, just once. Once you start walking the Path, you cannot stop until you have reached the end, so if you are unsure at all, turn back now."  
  
Malfoy immediately turned to leave, only to be stopped by Harry's firm grip on the collar of his robes. "Wonderful. Mind telling us why we should care about this Path of yours?" Malfoy drawled instead, sounding bored.  
  
She shook her head, ignoring his tone. "At the end of the Path lies whatever   
knowledge you need. Since this is self-enlightenment of sorts, and since   
everyone has different needs, the end of the Path must be faced alone."  
  
Harry grinned. He'd be able to find out how to save Ron. If there was ever anything he had truly needed to know, it was that. "Thank you," he tolde the ghost gratefully.  
  
She waved a hand. "Don't mention it. Good luck to you both." With that,   
she vanished. "Have lots of fun!"  
  
"Fun. How charming. We're supposed to follow a path that isn't here." Malfoy   
sighed. "Tell me again why I'm here?"  
  
"Oh, shut up," Harry snapped, feeling at the walls. "Help me look. There's   
probably a secret passage around here somewhere." He twitched a nearby   
candlestick.  
  
"Thrilling." Malfoy's voice dripped sarcasm. He walked around the small   
room and leaned against the mirror, where he had a good view of Harry's   
activity. "Wake me when we can go."  
  
The mirror... shivered, almost, and Malfoy's shoulder sank into it before he   
jerked back with a strangled yelp.   
  
Harry forced back laughter (the sight of Malfoy staring poison death and destruction at a mirror was something he'd need to describe to Ron once this was over). "Looks like you found the entrance," he said neutrally.  
  
"You think?"  
  
"This time you go first. If there's a trap... and you die... I don't have to   
put up with you anymore." Harry grinned evenly.  
  
Malfoy scowled and stalked into the mirror, somehow managing to communicate both sulkiness and rage without saying a word. Harry waited a moment, to be sure an arm or leg wasn't going to be thrown out. When it wasn't, he followed, walking into the liquid surface.  
  
No turning back now, he thought. I hope this works.  
  



	2. Reflection

  
Summary: The first realm in the Path of Knowledge is a reflection.  
  
Path of Knowledge: Part 2  
  
  
He couldn't help it... he was disappointed. Harry looked around the room on the other side of the mirror, and as far as he could tell, he and Malfoy were just back in the Hogwarts library. Shelves filled with books, heavy tables and chairs, the occasional potted fern as halfhearted attempts at decoration. He sighed.  
  
Malfoy looked around, the expression on his face making it clear he was barely repressing a smirk. "Out of one library, right back into another. Have fun, Potter." He settled into a nearby chair and rested his feet on the table, making it very clear that he intended to have no part in whatever Harry was going to do.  
  
Harry glared and stalked off to the far reaches of the library to restart his search. Malfoy watched him go with cool grey eyes, squelching the unfamiliar niggling feeling of guilt that he wasn't helping. It was, after all, one thing to come along with Potter under threat of blackmail, but it was another thing entirely to actually help out once they were there, or back, or whatever. He had the sneaking suspicion it was even slightly immoral.  
  
That, and something didn't seem quite right with the place. It was probably like being a musician in an orchestra and having one person (not himself, obviously) consistently playing half a note off-key. Not something that one really noticed, but it was there nonetheless, dancing around the edge of his mind and refusing to clarify itself. "Some Path," he said out loud to himself.  
  
"What were you expecting?" a piping soprano voice asked derisively from nearby. "A hedge maze?"  
  
Malfoy turned his head to see one of the library's small, leafy potted plants sitting nonchalantly on the floor outside its pot playing with some brightly-colored blocks. "Excuse me?" he asked. In spite of the polite phrasing, there was no courtesy in his voice.  
  
The plant set its blocks down and looked him over carefully, inasmuch as anything without eyes could look at anything else. "Were you expecting a hedge maze?" it repeated after a moment, almost respectfully.   
  
Malfoy sighed. First walking through a mirror on a ghost and Potter's say-so, next talking plants. "Something like that," he answered finally.   
  
"Humans," the plant scoffed, turning its attention back to its blocks. "Always so literal. Just because something's called a Path doesn't mean it necessarily is one."   
  
"I knew it!" Malfoy snarled suddenly, snatching out his wand and half-rising from his seat. "I *knew* this was a wild goose chase. Potter is *dead*!"  
  
"You're doing it again," the plant singsonged. "Being too literal. I didn't say this wasn't the Path."  
  
"You said it's not a path."  
  
"It's not the same thing at all." The plant stacked its blocks in one symmetrical pile, then knocked them down. "It's not a path, it's the Path."  
  
"Let me know when you feel like making sense, you stupid thing," Malfoy snapped, dropping back into his chair, momentary rage subsiding. A crashing sound from elsewhere in the library attested to the fact that Harry was still searching through the stacks and had apparently knocked over a shelf. He half-rose again, before the fern spoke again, ignoring both insult and crashing.  
  
"Take your friend, for example-"  
  
"He's *not* my friend," the pale boy snapped, sitting back down when no human noises of pain were in evidence. Potter evidently hadn't hurt himself *too* badly yet.  
  
"Whatever you say," the fern replied, amused. "He's *never* going to get anywhere if he keeps on like that." It curled a few of its roots around the colored blocks and used the rest to haul itself on top of the table Malfoy was seated at. Once there, it began stacking its blocks again. "He's so busy looking for answers that he's forgotten the really important part."  
  
"And a fern knows what's important?" Malfoy asked in acid tones.  
  
"Usually," it answered calmly. "No one bothers to ask us, though, do they? Humans don't give plants enough credit. You zip around all the time and never stop to really think. You can't find the end of the story at the beginning, and you can't have answers when you haven't even asked the question yet."  
  
"Wonderful. Philosophical lectures from a shrub. Get to the point, if you have one. Any second now I'm going to have to get up and fish Potter out of a pile of books."   
  
"You're not going to get anywhere, either. Not with an attitude like that," the plant said sadly. "Which is a shame, because you seem to have potential. Not many who've come through here bothered to pay any attention to me." It wrinkled its leaves in a manner suggesting a smile. "Much less insult me as often as possible."  
  
"That's probably because you shouldn't exist."  
  
It laughed. "You've almost got it. You're almost there. I shouldn't exist, but I do. You can see me, hear me, talk to me. And if your friend-"  
  
"For the last time, Potter is *not* my friend!"  
  
"If your *friend* was over here, he wouldn't hear me at all. He'd just think you were nuts for talkin to a fern in a pile of dirt." The small plant flicked its leaves dismissively. "And that's the truth. So here. These are yours." The root tendrils curled around the colorful blocks and shoved them over to Malfoy. "Use them in good health." The plant climbed off the table and headed back in the direction of its pot.  
  
"And what, precisely, am I supposed to do with these?" Malfoy picked up one of the blocks and immediately set it down again.  
  
The plant curled in on itself as if going to sleep. "Use your imagination," its piping voice yawned. "People with imagination control their world. I can't tell you everything, you know...."  
  
"Be nice if you told me *anything*," Malfoy muttered. Another crash sounded from the same area of the library as before. He sighed, picked up the blocks, put them in a pocket of his robes, and went to investigate.   
  
He found Harry standing in a small pile of books in front of a particularly loaded bookshelf. Particularly loaded, that was, except for the very topmost shelf, which held only one volume, thick and bound with brick-red leather. "What are you doing, Potter?" he asked flatly. "I could hear you crashing around all the way over there."  
  
"Well, if I had some *help*...." Harry swallowed the rest of his sentence and pointed up at the top shelf. "I think that book up there'll tell us what we need to know, but I can't get to it."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why can't I get to it?" Harry frowned. "It's too high, and I don't see any stepladders or anything around. I tried to climb a shelf earlier, but it almost fell on me."  
  
"I wish it had," Malfoy snapped back. "That's what magic is for, idiot. And I was asking why you thought that particular book has your answers."  
  
Harry shrugged. "Well, one of them has to, doesn't it? And that one seems to be in the most inconvenient place, don't you think?"   
  
"You can't get to it, therefore it's what you're looking for?" Malfoy asked incredulously. "That has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard."  
  
Harry ignored him and brought out his wand from its hiding place up his sleeve and pointed it at the book. "Wingardium leviosa!"  
  
The book shuddered on the shelf for a moment, or at least it appeared to. It was in fact the bookshelf lifting a few inches off the ground. Both boys were silent for a moment, watching the large oak bookshelf hover. "Well," Malfoy said after a moment. "Nice *aim*, Potter."  
  
Harry snapped his wand away from the bookshelf and brought it around so that it pointed at the other boy's head. "You think you can do any better?" he snapped.  
  
"I know I can." Malfoy also brought out his wand, tensing up as if he was going to go into dueling position. "Care to test me?"  
  
They didn't get the chance to debate the point further. The bookshelf smashed back onto the floor, landed on its corner, and fell forward on top of him. Harry, on impulse, dove backwards, grabbing the back of Malfoy's robes and dragging him along.   
  
Both boys bounced off the shelves behind them, right back into the path of the falling shelf. "Why thank you," Malfoy spat. "This is *so* much better. Why be simply squashed flat when you can be humiliated first?"  
  
"Shut up and get out of the way!" Harry managed to say, just before the shelf finished falling and landed on top of them. There was a spray of brilliant rainbow sparkles, a flash, then nothing.  



	3. Town & Country

Harry Potter and the Path of Knowledge  
Part 3: The Other Side  
  
  
"Get... off... me!" Harry Potter tried to yell, only slightly muffled by the heap of books and overturned shelf crushing his back.  
  
"Who, precisely, is on top of whom here, Potter?" was the snarled response. "*You* get off *me*. This is all your fault anyway."  
  
"Sure, Malfoy, like you're an innocent bystander-"  
  
"Although God knows I've tried to be!"  
  
"-and anyway this isn't helping," Harry finished. "Look, you try and go left, I'll try and go right...."  
  
"And then what?" Malfoy sneered. "A waltz? A game of Quidditch, perhaps? We're trapped under a *bookshelf*, Potter! Twitching one way or another isn't going to help." He shifted weight slightly, as if turning his head. "Do you hear something? Like footsteps?"  
  
"Don't change the subject! If one of us *moved*, I might be able to get at my wand." It really was pointless arguing. Malfoy disagreed with everything he said on reflex alone. "Or you'd be able to get at yours," he added grudgingly after a moment. "Which means one of us'd be able to lift this thing off. Unless you've got a better i-"  
  
Harry didn't get to finish his sentence, what with the sudden, sickening sensation of gravity kicking in. The floor opened beneath the two boys, dropping them and a pile of books about twenty feet straight down, to land in an untidy heap on solid, but relatively open, ground. "I'm getting very sick of falling into holes with you," Harry mumbled woozily to the pale Slytherin, who for once didn't snap back an answer.  
  
"My goodness me," remarked a girl's voice. "There's something that doesn't happen every day, that it doesn't. Human boys coming out of the closet, right along with the rest. Well, it just goes to show, doesn't it?"  
  
Harry shook off the books on top of him and sat up, swaying only slightly. Beside him, under a small pile of books, lay an unconscious Malfoy. No wonder he didn't snap at me, Harry thought, and resisted the urge to slap him awake. Not only had Malfoy, by virtue of being underneath Harry, been the first to hit the ground, he'd then been hit by the falling books and by the bouncing weight of Harry himself. Hitting him wouldn't solve anything and he probably wouldn't even feel it. Besides, it would probably make him angry, although Harry was at a loss to explain to himself why that mattered; Malfoy had probably been *born* angry at him.  
  
Instead of a slap, Harry carefully took the books off the other boy and checked him for injuries without bothering to look up at the girl, who'd begun talking again. "M'am? M'am, could you come here please?" she called.  
  
"What is it, dear?" answered an older voice. "Didn't you find the dusting books? They're in the ceiling closet on the second floor, you can't be too far away from them-"  
  
"No M'am! I found them all right, just where you told me! Only there's these two boys as has fallen out of the closet right along with them, M'am, and I don't know what I should do!"  
  
It was, Harry decided, much easier to deal with Malfoy when he wasn't conscious and being a jerk. It was much easier to appreciate the fact that the pale boy was actually quite good-looking, certainly enough to account for the previously inexplicable giggling and blushing among girls who didn't know about his attitude problem. And there weren't any broken bones, either; at least they were spared repeating *that* aspect of their previous experience as a 'team'. Satisfied as to the relative well-being of his companion, he looked up in the direction of the girl's voice.  
  
It wasn't a girl. She was actually a girl-sized fluffy gray rabbit, who regarded him with inquisitive pink eyes and nose that wouldn't stop twitching. "Oh, haven't you got pretty eyes, all green and that," she crooned at him. "And awake and all. How's your little friend?"  
  
Harry didn't bother correcting her; it was too difficult to explain precisely why he was going around with the other member of his mutual-hate society. Besides which, the rabbit was wearing a pink floral-patterned apron, and since rabbits generally didn't wear aprons (floral or not), he was probably hallucinating. "He's okay, just dazed. Who... what are you?"  
  
The rabbit-girl fluffed herself up proudly. "I'm th'maid, sir. At this inn, don't you know, and my name's Rachel." Rachel. A normal name, which somehow made the fact that she was a rabbit even more bizarre. "And Miss Robin ought to be up presently so I can get along with my dusting." Her expression changed, and it took Harry a moment to recognize sternness. Few things are as difficult for a twitchy-nosed fluffy grey rabbit, girl-sized or not, as looking stern and forbidding. "And she's a very important lady in Gemina, understand, so you'll be on your best manners with her-"  
  
"Yes. Yes, of course," Harry agreed immediately. Few things are as intimidating as stern fluffy grey rabbits in pink floral aprons, by virtue of their rarity.  
  
Malfoy groaned and opened his eyes, blinking them a few times. "Well, that was fun," he said indistinctly. "What a good plan, Potter. Fall through the floor. I wouldn't have thought of it. I suppose one of us has got a broken arm again?"  
  
"Nope. Nothing broken. How... um... how do you feel?"  
  
"Like my head's been beaten with a hammer and then filled with cotton." He stretched and arranged himself in a sitting position. "Probably a concussion."  
  
He didn't venture how he knew what a concussion felt like, and Harry didn't ask. "I... know a few Healing charms," he offered clumsily. "If you wanted, I could-"  
  
"Oh, don't help me. The last thing I need is you *helping* me," Malfoy snapped, sounding like himself. Footsteps sounded on the staircase behind them, and Rachel hopped over to it, nose twitching excitedly. "Then we'd bond, and I'd have to vomit." Silvery-grey eyes darted to the staircase, blinked, then looked back at Harry. "Was that a rabbit?"  
  
"Yeah. Her name's Rachel." Harry got to his feet. "Need a hand up?"  
  
"No!" The pale boy tried to stand up too, but swayed dangerously and fell back over. "Ah. Yes."  
  
Harry did his best not to grin I-told-you-so as he took hold of Malfoy's arm and helped him to his feet. "I still know those Healing-"  
  
"No!" Malfoy snapped angrily. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. "Besides, you couldn't anyway."  
  
"I can! We did them in Charms last term, remember? And I was really good at them-"  
  
"Not without your wand, I mean," the other backpedaled. "Haven't you noticed?"  
  
Harry blinked, then cast about for his wand. Malfoy was right. It was gone, probably still up in the library. "I hadn't... have you got yours?"  
  
Malfoy shook his head. "No." He scowled. "I hate being defenseless."  
  
They were interrupted at that point by the woman-sized yellow bird (a canary, specifically) who'd come up the stairs. Rachel stood respectfully behind her. She opened her beak in what Harry sincerely hoped was a smile. "Well, it is nice to have company again. It's been quite a while. Rachel dear, go get some tea." The rabbit bobbed a curtsy and bounced down the stairs. "From the green tin, mind, these poor boys look like they can barely stand without hanging on to each other."   
  
Malfoy flushed red and let go of Harry's arm, practically shoving himself away. Harry nodded at the bird-woman. "You're... Miss Robin?"  
  
"Ah, I see Rachel mentioned me. She's a good girl, and wonderful at dusting, but dreadfully in awe." Miss Robin clacked her beak, apparently laughing. "Come along downstairs, come along. You're younger than we usually get down here. And two at once, practically unheard of." She clacked her beak again and started back down the stairs.  
  
Harry glanced at Malfoy and shrugged, then followed. After a moment, Malfoy joined him. "Excuse me, Miss Robin," Harry said respectfully. "But we accidentally left some things up in your library-"  
  
"Oh, we haven't got a library. No, no, you fell out of the closet."  
  
"A closet in the ceiling?" Malfoy asked skeptically.  
  
"Well, where else would you have one? We keep our dusting books in that one."  
  
"Dusting books?" Harry asked. "You use books to dust?"  
  
"Yes, books attract dust, everyone knows that. Are you two sure you're supposed to be here? You don't sound prepared at all." Miss Robin flicked one wing. "Well, it's not for me to say, I'm sure."  
  
"You know why we're here?" Harry asked excitedly, following the oversized canary into a perfectly ordinary kitchen. "What do we do next?"  
  
"You're walking the Path, aren't you?" she asked, using one taloned foot to pour tea into cups and hand it around. Rachel bobbed another curtsy and bounced out of the kitchen, trying to hide the fact that she'd swiped a piece of lettuce. "Every time, we have a boy or a girl coming out of some odd place claiming to be walking this Path of theirs. We haven't had one in years, though." She sipped her tea; Harry wondered how she did it without spilling, as she had no lips. "As for what you do next, your guess is much better than mine. But stay and drink your tea first."  
  
Harry did. It was surprisingly good tea, unlike any other he'd had before. Malfoy gave his a cursory taste, then set it aside. Probably didn't like tea, or something. "Do you have any suggestions?" Harry asked Miss Robin, as though he sat in kitchens and drank tea with giant birds every day. "For what we should do next, I mean."  
  
"You could ask the fortune-teller, I suppose," Miss Robin said doubtfully. "But... not really very reliable, you see. People who spend their time looking at what hasn't happened yet seldom are."  
  
"To put it another way," Malfoy put in unexpectedly, "how would you go about getting where you want to go?"  
  
She beamed, somehow. Harry, for his part, didn't want to think about how. "Oh, that's easy. I'd take the train if I was leaving town, or if I was visiting Miss Shorie, who lives next door, I'd walk over and knock on the door. Now, it *has* been nice talking with you boys. Congratulations and good luck, but I have to go now. I *do* run a business." She vanished.  
  
Harry buried his face in his arms, ignoring his tea. "Rabbits and chickens-"  
  
"I believe she was a canary."  
  
"-that just disappear! Or curtsy and hop off. And we don't even know what to do next!" He sat up suddenly, putting his chin in his hands. "Except visit this fortune-teller of hers."   
  
Or take a train or knock on a door, Malfoy added silently, but he kept the thought to himself. Aside from the fact that only the train made any sense, it was too close to actually helping Potter to be worth saying.  
  
"So where's this fortune-teller?" Harry mused. "Professor Trelawney's at the very top of one of the towers, I wonder if maybe it's like that."  
  
"*I* wonder if you could just ask," Malfoy replied testily. "It would probably get this over quicker."  
  
Harry blinked. "Why didn't I think of that?"   
  
"Because you're a-"  
  
"Thanks, Draco!" Harry bounded up and out. Now things were moving! Maybe the Grey Lady had been right in the first place to want Malfoy along. He felt almost friendly towards the pale boy. "'S all right if I call you that, right?"  
  
"Wrong!" Lost cause. Harry wasn't listening. He sighed and stood up, followed the dark-haired boy out to the inn's main room. Harry bounded over to Miss Robin immediately, asking how to find the fortune-teller. Malfoy contented himself with looking around.  
  
On the face of it, it was a perfectly ordinary room. It had armchairs, a fireplace, several small end tables and coffee tables, as well as a reception desk with a Muggle-style grandfather clock right beside it. It also had a number of strange... beings populating it. Aside from Miss Robin, there was a tall thing that looked like a walking leek, a fat splotched rabbit in a suit, and a teapot with small arms engaged in a fierce argument with what appeared to be a squirrel.  
  
"At the marketplace!" Harry announced, giving no sign he'd noticed the assortment of creatures in the room. "Let's go!" He didn't wait for his companion, just raced out the door.  
  
Miss Robin clacked her beak amusedly. "You must have a great deal of energy to keep up with that boy."  
  
"You have no idea," the pale boy replied as he was leaving.  
  
After the door shut behind him, Miss Robin clacked her beak and dissolved into the form of a slim girl made of fine silvery mist. "What a cute pair they *do* make," the Grey Lady remarked, then laughed and vanished. "I wonder what happens next."  
  
*****  
  
The marketplace was typical of open-air marketplaces everywhere. Loud, crowded, filled to overflowing with teeming life. It was surrounded on all sides by uniform red brick buildings separated only by narrow cobbled roads. Harry and Draco were the only humans in evidence, all the other people teeming around were animals or vegetables of some kind, but the stalls sold ordinary things. *Not* fruits and vegetables, obviously, but there were booksellers and cloth vendors, spice merchants and purveyors of fine tableware. "This place is a warren," Harry said, pulling the other close so he didn't have to yell to be heard. "How're we gonna find this fortune-teller?"  
  
Malfoy jerked back. "You got directions, didn't you, Potter? Start looking."  
  
Harry snorted. "My directions consisted of how to get here and the fact that she's hard to miss. Let's split up."  
  
"What?" Malfoy asked suspiciously. Good and bad. Good: he might get five minutes where he didn't have to deal with Potter's incessant yammering. Bad: he might get lost and then have to deal with walking, talking vegetation for the rest of his life.   
  
"Split up," Harry repeated. "We can meet back here in an hour or something."  
  
"And why would we do this? We don't know who you're looking for."  
  
"The fortune-teller. She's hard to miss." Harry darted off through the hordes. "In an hour, Draco!" He was quickly lost from sight.  
  
"Don't call me that," the pale boy muttered reflexively. "You are *not* my friend." He sighed and began looking around. 'Hard to miss', ha. Anyone here was hard to miss. Well, unless he wanted to stand in one place for an hour... Malfoy left, after carefully memorizing landmarks so he'd be able to get back after his hour was up.  
  
*****  
  
Elsewhere, Harry was searching for a fortune-teller. Unfortunately, he envisioned someone rather like Professor Trelawney, and no one who looked vaguely like a jewelry-coated scarab beetle was much in evidence. "This is going to take some time," he muttered.  
  
"You look lost!" said a bright voice off to his right. Harry started violently, then turned to see Rachel, the rabbit maid from Miss Robin's inn, staring at him with her unblinking pink eyes. "Can I help?"  
  
Oh no, Harry thought, I think she *likes* me. "Hi, Rachel," he said somewhat weakly. "I'm looking for the fortune-teller-"  
  
The rabbit shook all over, bobbing happily. "Oh, oh, oh! How lucky! I'm going there now, I am." She twitched her nose shyly. "Want to come along?"  
  
Harry nodded gratefully (she was a nice girl, as rabbits went) and tried to think of something that wouldn't be mistaken for flirting as he fell into step with her. "Er... why do you need to see her? I thought you lived here."  
  
Rachel's ears drooped. "Well, Miss Robin noticed I'd left the pile of dusting books up by the closet and not picked them up again after you and your friend came out, and one of our guests fell over it. So now instead of dusting I have to clean the silver, but we're out of polish. So I need to ask the fortune-teller where I can buy some today."  
  
Harry wrinkled his nose. "Seems like a dull thing to ask someone who sees the future," he said, more for something to say than because it did.  
  
Rachel giggled. "Silly. She sells maps, too, since she knows what the market's going to look like before anyone else. Makes a lot more money that way, too. If she waited for people to ask her about their futures, she'd starve. The only people who ask her things are Miss Robin's visitors. Like you."  
  
It turned out that the fortune-teller always made her commercial home in the same location, for the convenience of the people who bought maps from her. Harry was not disappointed in his expectations. The fortune-teller was a great myna bird, brilliantly colored and apparently enamored of gold jewelry, at least judging from the amount festooned around her taloned feet and bright wings. She even had huge glasses that magnified her eyes to a creepily large and intimidating size balanced on her curved beak.  
  
Rachle immediately bobbed over and asked for a map, which was given her with an opened-bea 'smile' and a placid remark of, "Left the dusting books out, did you, Rachel?" Rachel shuddered, took her map, and bounded off at her top hopping speed, with her apron-ribbons fluttering after her. "Always the same thing with her," chuckled the fortune-teller. "And what can I do for you, Harry Potter?"  
  
Harry, now used to the oddness around him, didn't ask how a giant parrot-variety bird knew his name. "I need to know what to do next."  
  
The fortune-teller clucked. "I can give you a map, telling you where everything here is. But I'm afraid questions concerning what to do next are rather-"  
  
"You're a fortune-teller, aren't you?" Harry demanded. It was just his luck to get a fortune-teller who was a hybrid cross of Professor Trelawney's looks and Gilderoy Lockhart's mental acuity. "How do you make your maps, then, if you can't see the future?"  
  
The myna bird laughed. "That's easy. The vendors ask me where they'll be that day, and I answer them. Then they go. I decide it all the night before."  
  
Harry blinked. "You decide how the market's set up? What if you do it wrong?"  
  
"It's just a matter of thinking it through, Harry," she said, ruffling her feathers importantly. "For example, I don't put cloth sellers right next to people who sell barbecued ribs, but I don't mind at all putting them there if they sell only napkins. Any problem, when attacked thoughtfully, can be overcome in style. You see?"  
  
"So you don't actually see the future at all." Harry scowled. "So you can't help me."  
  
The bird shrugged. "I can't give you a map telling you what to do, true, just one saying where things are. Where you go, what you do... those are your decisions. What do you think you're supposed to do?"  
  
"I'm... I'm trying to save a friend of mine," Harry said, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the big bird. "He'll die unless I hurry. So... even if you can't see the future, could you give me your advice?"  
  
"I'd give you my advice even if I could see te future," the fortune-teller said sharply. "I can't tell you what to do. I advise, however, that since you feel speed is of the essence, you take the train. It's just leaving in a moment or two."  
  
Harry surged back to his feet. "Where?"  
  
The bird waved a wing languidly. "Turn around. There you are. The Gemina Train Station, platform One-and-only."  
  
When Harry turned around, there was indeed a train sitting there. When he turned around to face the fortune-teller again, she was still there watching him, only not surrounded by the hustle of the market. Instead, the grey, rushing mass of a train station surrounded her, making her colors even more brilliant and eye-piercing. "Wasn't this where you wanted to be?" she asked innocently, bracelets jangling as she lifted a taloned foot holding a ticket.  
  
"Well... yes, but... I mean...." Harry floundered, then rallied and tried again. "I mean, I've got someone with me. I said we'd back in an hour, and I don't want to ditch h-"  
  
The bird cocked her head. "No? Well, I suppose you could go back. But this is the last train, you know. You won't get another chance. You *did* say speed was important. Do you really want to wait for someone else to come back, and then longer to find another way?"  
  
Harry bowed his head. It was true. Every second extra he spent on this Path thing was one second less time Ron had. And when balanced against his best friend's life, how important was a 'we'll meet back in an hour' said to someone who hated him? It wasn't as if Malfoy was doing anything more than griping about everything and thinking up new insults, wasn't as if he was helping at all.  
  
Harry took the ticket, and boarded the train just as it was leaving. He didn't look back.  
  
With a sigh, the Grey Lady discarded the bright feathers of the myna bird. Not unexpected, though still a somewhat surprising development, she thought and vanished from sight. The train station dissolved around her, replaced again by the swirl of the obsessively busy Gemina marketplace. With a quick flip of her misty hand, she assumed another guise and settled down to wait.  



End file.
